"Mr. Cowper, we would be pleased to have you bring the ladies up."
Mr. Cowper bowed with gravity, but did not say anything, as he was preparing within him his form of self-introduction.
In a few moments Mr. Cowper and Mr. Withers met our party as they slowly meandered up the ascent toward the hotel. Mr. Cowper, hat in hand, gave them collectively a bow, which, if somewhat foreign in its nature, was not without dignity, and he addressed them with unmistakable hospitality, while Mr. Withers, by a flank movement, attacked the left wing of the party, where he conducted a little reception of his own.
Mr. Cowper said, "How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?"
Mrs. Dusenall bowed and smiled, and the others, wondering what was coming, bowed also as they caught Mr. Cowper's encompassing eye. "We regret," he said, looking toward Geoffrey, to whom he was more especially attracted on account of his cap-badge and greater stature. "We regret, captain, that we did not notice your arrival in time to be on the landing to assist the ladies from your canoe."
Geoffrey's smile only indicated his gratification and had no reference to Mr. Cowper's new name for the yacht's gig.
"We are only guests in the hotel ourselves, but if we had known of your coming some of us certainly would have been down to receive you in the proper manner."
What "proper manner" of reception Mr. Cowper had in his head it is difficult to say. His words showed Mrs. Dusenall, however, that he was not the custom-house officer or the hotel-keeper, which relieved her of some anxiety lest she should make a mistake. At a slight pause in his flow of language she thanked him in her most reassuring accents, and continued in those suave tones and with that perfect self-possession, with which the English duchess, her head a little on one side and chin upraised, has been supposed carelessly to assert her person, crown, and dignity.
"I assure you," she said, "that we are only knocking about, as it were, quite informally, from place to place in the yacht."
"Quite informally," echoed Geoffrey, who was enjoying Mrs. Dusenall.